


Same Coin

by Three_Oaks



Series: Oaksy's Prompt Game [23]
Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Civilian Benji, First Meetings, Infiltration, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24008383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Three_Oaks/pseuds/Three_Oaks
Summary: Ethan Hunt is sent on an easy mission. Infiltrate a tech giant, befriend one of their employee, get the intel. And what better mark than Benji Dunn?
Relationships: Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt
Series: Oaksy's Prompt Game [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676299
Comments: 21
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

An easy mission. Two weeks in and out, tops. Not much risk, except of getting antsy after a few days hanging around the office, swinging a camera in people's face and asking questions he didn't care about to men and women he'd never see again. A target that had been described as "the easiest mark he'd ever seen" by Luther. 

Ethan Hunt gave himself five extra minutes in bed, that morning. There was no need to rush.

The wind was blowing in icy gusts as Ethan walked up the steps from the closest subway station, the bag of equipment heavy on his shoulder. 

Daniel Aubrey, 49, documentary filmmaker hired by the highly cheerful PR department of Pegasi, the world's third largest net giant. Hired to make a movie that reflected the brand's progressive, socially conscious values, and its friendly image. It was, after all, the perfect brand for the new millennium, and its connected youth that made Ethan feel both old and slightly resentful. What not to like about Pegasi? Everyone had one of their devices. Their ads were fun. Its CEO had just pledged 10 million to the fight against climate change. They'd come out of their latest Congressional hearing mostly unscathed. And what where their detractors going to do? Use Yahoo? Pegasi had already won.

They hadn't needed to tell him that if he wasn't the one who made the movie that showed the world how fun the company's culture was, how happy its employees were, how its only concern was the betterment of humanity by technology, the they would find someone who would.

Ethan arrived at the monumental glass entrance, and waited at the reception for someone to take him upstairs. The office was massive, with ping pong tables on every floor, smoothie bars on the 10th, 50th and 80th floor, 5 complementary cafeteria and a Michelin starred restaurant with a panoramic view just below the CEO's office on the 85th, just as advertised in the brochure an eager intern had handed him at the door.

What wasn't advertised was the miles of server rooms below the ground, cooled by the water of the nearby Hudson and holding data worth more than the GDP of several nations. Combined. More data than any government had, more data than the IMF could dream of. But he wasn't there for the always shrinking privacy of Pegasi's innumerable customers, or partners, as they insisted on calling them, or the questionable way they ensured their continued supply in the rare earth elements so essential for electronics, and so unfortunately produced in countries with less than stellar records for human rights, environmental rights, press rights. Any case of rights, really. 

He was there because they had a leak.

The elevator dinged, Ethan went in, and pressed the button to the 79th floor. A leak, the first in Pegasi's history. At least, as far as they knew. And they didn't know nearly as much as they should for Ethan's taste. Even more strangely, the whistleblower hadn't put their data up on the internet, for anyone to see, or given it to journalists that would open the story wide. They'd sent it to the IMF, directly. An agency that did not exist, that no one but the very few at the very top of the government and its counterparts in the shadows of the laws knew about. Of course, absolute secrecy was not possible. But getting an email to the Secretary's office, with a polite note and just enough data to make the retrieval of more intelligence an immediate priority was less secrecy that they thought they had. And they were good. No one had been able to trace the email, or find any valuable info about their identity. Whoever they were, they were better with computers than the entire IMF. 

The door opened, letting in a gaggle of casually dressed thirty something men and women. Ethan greeted them with a smile. It could be any of them. The woman with the cropped blue hair and the Motley Crüe t-shirt, smiling as she texted away on her phone. The guy with the black bags under his eyes, gulping what could not be his first coffee. 

Not that it mattered much to his mission. He was only there to get the rest of the intel, but it didn't stop him from being curious. 

The elevator slowly emptied, before reaching his destination. A high floor for high ranking employees. Employees that may have access to the data he was looking for.

The proof that Pegasi was selling human rights activists' data to governments in exchange for contracts. The proof that it had a lucrative side business based on their complicity with brutal regimes. The proof that it had willingly delivered families to be tortured and executed. 

He left the elevator and walked along a glass corridor, until he'd reached the office in the corner. His mark.

He took a breath, and knocked on the door.

No answer. 

He knocked again, waited a few seconds, and peered through the glass wall.

There definitely was someone at the desk. Someone who was ignoring him. 

He knocked again, louder, and went in without bothering to wait for an answer.

The man was asleep on his keyboard, at 11 am on a Monday morning, softly snoring next to a dirty, half-empty coffee mug.

Well, at least his intel was correct. Benji Dunn, 42, senior data engineer. He'd been reprimanded five time in the past two years for tardiness, negligence, and theft of office supplies. Or more exactly, theft of a high-end coffeemaker from the VP's lounge, which he'd installed in his own office. Ethan had to admire the gall. As far as he could tell, he had no relationships, no hobbies beyond video games and, if the angry note on his last performance review was to be believed, no future in this company. 

Ethan picked up his tripod, and let it fall to the floor in a loud, metallic clanking.

Dunn jumped to his feet, sending the coffee in his mug flying all over his shirt.

"Fuck!" 

He patted at the stain with a tissue, and looked at Ethan, an annoyed look on his face. 

He was handsome, Ethan noted. A short blond beard, much better kept than his clothes, clear blue eyes and a mouth that he wanted to see smiling.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Ethan said, giving Dunn his best, most shining grin. 

His t-shirt was crumpled, as if he'd slept in in, and his hoodie was fraying at the edges. Even by the lax standards of Pegasi, he looked more like someone who had wandered in after a night of binging than a senior employee. 

Befriend Dunn. Gain his confidence. Steal his access to the data, gather whatever he could, and get out. This would be easier than he thought. He nearly felt bad about it.

"Not your fault. I really shouldn't have finished that level yesterday night. Or this morning, actually." 

Ethan laughed. Was Dunn hoping to get fired?

"You must..." Dunn started, before yawning. "You must be the documentary guy."

"Exactly. Daniel Aubrey," Ethan said, reaching out for a handshake.

Dunn hugged him instead. 

He didn't have the same annoyed, tired look as before. There was something else in his eyes, a glimmer of energy Ethan didn't know what to make of.

"Nice to meet you, Danny. Can I call you Danny?"

Ethan was about to answer when Dunn cut him off.

"Everyone calls me Benji. So, tell me, why are you here? Steal our data, reveal all of our dark secrets?"

Ethan opened his mouth, and closed it again. 

"Don't worry, I'm joking. We don't have any dark secrets. Except than the coconut chai on floor 50 isn't really vegan. Please don't put that in the film, though, Michelle is a very nice woman and I don't want to get her fired." 

Without even catching a breath, he went on.

"Aubrey, you said? That's an old name. Norman, right? You'll have to tell me about your family, one day, I'd be fascinated to hear where they're from, their stories..."

Ethan's smile started tensing.

"But no matter. Don't let me ramble too much, or I'll ruin your film. What is your film, by the way?"

Ethan pulled himself together, mustering an answer before Dunn could start talking again

"I was hired to show the values of Pegasi to their cust- partners."

"Why do we call them partners? They're customers! They pay! Never understood the appeal. You're here to make a puff piece, then."

"No, of course..."

"And since my time is the less valuable of all the senior employees for a reason I can't possibly fathom, and Jean never forgave me for borrowing her coffee machine, I'm the one who's going to have the pleasure of showing you around."

"Well, I don't want to..."

"Be a bother? Of course not. But say, since you made me lose my coffee, why don't you get me one on the 85th?"

Dunn smiled widely.

Ethan started to regret not picking the Sudan mission instead.


	2. Chapter 2

Benji bought a cappuccino, with two extra shots of coffee, a croissant, a Danish, and a banana to keep up the appearance of health. And, after all, it was Aubrey's treat. 

"That will be 19.50 $, please."

He had to admire the unflappable smile that Aubrey kept up while pulling his card to pay the unreasonable high bill. Not that he had gotten the most expensive coffee blend on purpose. Well, he had. How else was he supposed to have his fun?

They sat at a table near the window, with a view across the river. Pegasi were bastards, but he couldn't say they hadn't a fine taste in architecture. If only the windows opened so you could throw some of the management through it, the building would be perfect. No, that was unfair for the cleaning personnel. 

Aubrey cleared his throat. Benji pushed his murder fantasies aside to look at him.

He was, simply put, gorgeous. Black hair falling softly on his forehead, green eyes he could keep staring into until they threw them out. His shirt just barely let guess the muscles underneath, his chest and arms perfectly complimented by the cut of the fabric. It was an expensive shirt, probably tailored. Too expensive.

Did they think him that much a moron?

He swallowed his bruised pride. That would only make things easier.

"So, Benji, have you been working here for long?" Aubrey asked, stirring his green tea.

"Four years," Benji answered, deliberately dipping his croissant in his coffee. God, Leon had always hated it when he did that. He pushed the thought away.

"And you, when did you give up on your artistic endeavors and become a corporate chump?"

"I haven't. But bills need paying. I could show you some of my work, if you want."

"I'm sure you're a real Vertov."

"Not really my style. I was working on a piece on arms dealerships."

"Oh look, it has a conscience!"

"I may be here to do a fluff piece, but it doesn't mean I don't read the news. Pegasi isn't exactly a NGO either."

Oh, was that how he was going to play it? Getting him defensive?

"Unfortunately, unlike you, I don't have a conscience. Too much effort."

"You didn't get where you are by avoiding effort. I think you're selling yourself short."

Compliments. Well done, too, looking away just a fraction of a second to give it a slightly shy tone.

"Oh, you are?" he answered. He really had to tone down the sarcasm. 

"Come on, I know I'm right. Tell me about yourself."

"And why should I do that?"

A fair question. How long had they known each other, half an hour?

"Because we're going to spend a lot of time together in the next two months. I'm sure we could be good friends."

Aubrey looked so disarmingly sincere that the idea seemed only reasonable.

"Ok. Short version? I was born in the UK, in a small village with a funny name. I got beaten up at school and didn't hold anyone's hand. Then I went to Oxford , didn't get beaten up anymore and got to hold a lot of cute guys' hands. And other things, if you catch my meaning. I did a PhD because it made me feel clever, and I've always wanted people to call me doctor. Like Doctor Who. Then I realized you could get more cute guys with money, worked for Google for a few years and then got head hunted by Pegasi. And this brings me here."

"I'm sorry you had a bad time at school," Aubrey said, his voice kinder than Benji had heard in a while.

Was that really the thing he was going to pick out? Handsome and caring. How lucky he was.

"How kind of you. Do you want me to go into the details, give you a sob story?"

The bite in Benji's words did nothing to dim Aubrey's irritatingly compassionate glance.

"If you want to talk about it, sure."

"Oh, would that make a good hook for your film?"

"No, not at all! Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. I wouldn't put anything in the film without consulting you. I just know it's nice to talk to someone, sometime."

Benji could nearly believe he meant it.

"And you're that someone? Buying me a coffee and some pastry doesn't quite cut it, you know," he said, finishing his danish.

"Then let me buy you a beer. And I'd love to hear about the coffee machine you... borrowed."

"Don't you have a better way to spend your evening?"

"I'm sure you'd know how to make it interesting."

That grin again, showing white teeth and more confidence than most people could muster over a lifetime. Just flirty enough that Benji couldn't miss it. If he had any doubt left, they disappeared. There was no way a man like Aubrey would look twice at someone like Benji. Not with the way he was dressed, the way he behaved.

"Pick me up at eight tomorrow. I've got moons to collect in Mario Odyssey tonight."

He got up and left, leaving Aubrey alone at the table with his green tea and his handsome face and his fake concern, hating him just a little.

***

Benji finished the minimum amount of work he could afford to do, and decided to go home. It wasn't easy: do too little, and Jean would find the energy to come scream at him. Do too much, and they'd actually assign him some task to complete. A fine balance it had taken him two years to master. 

As soon as he was alone in his flat, he took his laptop out. The encryption on Carter's laptop had been giving him headaches for a week now, and he wasn't any closer to breaking it than he'd been yesterday at dawn. The letters were blurring and the blood was pulsing in his temples. He needed sleep. He made himself a coffee, and tried again.

He just had to hold on for a little longer. Maybe a month, two maximum. And then Pegasi would be gone, and he'd be free. He'd be safe again. It had only been what, a week since he'd sent the IMF Secretary that nice email, and that had been enough for a handsome, well-dressed, attentive documentarian to show up at his office. Faster than he'd expected. Easier to spot than he'd expected, too. He'd known Aubrey, or whatever his name actually was, was their operative from the moment he'd spilled his coffee all over himself. Well, if he'd been sent by Pegasi to deal with him, he'd have been dead before he got himself dry. That was how it worked, usually.

At twelve, a ping from his phone interrupted him. A text message.

"Hi! Sorry, I hope this isn't too forward, but I asked Janine for you number - Dan"

Of course. Janine must have been delighted to give his number to the handsome documentarian that was so interested in little old Benji. He must barely have needed to chat her up. Benji liked her, in fact. She'd actually been concerned for him when he'd started acting... well, like that. It was a pity that he was going to get her fired, alongsied everybody else. 

Well, he should be grateful to Janine. That way, he didn't have to find a way to give Aubrey his number without looking suspicious.

"Hi, Danny! Not past your bedtime?" he answered.

He sighed. That wouldn't do. He had to show a minimum of interest.

Aubrey would try to find out what Benji knew, use him for his access. And he'd let him, feed him information. Keep playing the moron, the guy too careless to notice. And the IMF would deal with the corrupt, illicit side of Pegasi's operations.

He sent a winking emoji, and hoped it would be enough.

"Never too late for a friendly text!" came back. And then, only a few seconds later, another mesage. "Did you find all the moons you wanted?" Well, who would have thought. Aubrey had actually remembered that.

He thought about it for a few instants, then answered.

"There's one that's giving me trouble."

Not a moon that was giving him sleepless nights, but not completely false.

"I'm sure you can do it! Good luck!"

He started typing a thank you, and deleted it. Then wrote it back again, and pressed send.

When the answer didn't come, he threw the phone on the sofa next to him and ran a hand over his eyes. He had a job to do. 

Hack into Carter's computer, find proof of the financial transactions between Pegasi and an armed militia. But Carter wasn't a moron. His system was secure, his password wasn't his dog's name, his wife's name, or his wife's dog's name, and he hadn't bitten at any of his phishing attempts. And he looked like a guy with a sketchy porn history. Well, that was the problem with working for a top tech company. Some people were actually competent with said tech.

He tried again for a few hours, looking for a weakness he'd overlooked the first twelve times. There was nothing. Benji slammed the computer shut and let himself fall onto his bed, not bothering to remove his clothes.

He'd have to access the computer physically. And if he got caught, everything would be over. A wave of terror washed over him, suddenly, irrepressibly. He'd hoped that at least he would have gotten used to the constant fear, after two years. He turned the light back on, and went to pick up his phone once he couldn't bear the darkness anymore. Another night without sleep.

A text.

"Good night :)"

"Good night, Danny," he wrote back. 

Whatever Aubrey was going to do, send the CEO to Guantanamo, shoot him in a back alley, it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough because Pegasi wasn't the only guilty party, because the next CEO would do the exact same thing if given even half a chance. There had to be a scandal. Well, he'd make sure there was one. Benji would just have to make sure that Pegasi had someone to blame. And who better than the guy poking around, asking questions? 

He didn't have the strength to feel guilty about using him.

It was only fair. Aubrey was using him too.


End file.
